You will not age well

"You will not age well" she told me
it was 4.42am
on Valentine’s Day 1988
and she was just getting started.
I could not see her face
amongst the rust shavings
of early light
scattered over the concrete swathes of bedding
but I knew it was there
looming like a giant seething owl

"how did we get here?" She asked
her voice was a scratched record
orbiting my brain like a
Sputnik

"I love you"
she added
and then hastily
"but that has never been enough"
as if love was a quantitative thing
like a group of pensioners
huddled under
a rain blasted shelter
on the promenade
in Eastbourne
or the green corduroy trousers
I wore to my
Bar mitzvah

I heard her pillow tumble and shatter on the ground
she was moving
this was her move
she touched my arm
and the temperature in the bedroom
plunged cruelly
this was the impact she had
on bio thermal physics.
Her fingers ran down my side
underneath my rib cage
and into my chest cavity
where my heart used to be

her hand opened and closed in the
empty space
and for once
just for a few moments
she had nothing to say